Mekton Zero Kickstarter

June 1, 2013

I’ve always found R. Talsorian games to be amongst the best games of their time – they usually found a good balance between the the cruft of point building of the 80’s and simplified mechanics with at least having been one of the companies that typically went with unified mechanics of the time. Plus, they really did the anime thing long before anyone else.

Mekton takes a lot to set up. I mean, I like making giant robots, but I wasn’t seriously expecting a bunch of preteens to get off on juggling calculus to create the optimal mecha suit. So I knew some adaptations were in order….

I started out by just making the mecha for them. Seems like a plan, right? But pretty soon, I realized that keeping track of the bookkeeping needed in a full-on mecha fight was putting a bunch of hyperactive preteens off in a big way. In fact, it was putting ME off after a while (since I had to do all the math). So I ended up simplifying the Mekton combat systems so that they reflected the intricacies of the core game, but in an easier to use way (like using hit location dice instead of tables). I also structured the combat system to better reflect the kind of combat they were used to seeing on the small screen; a style that was less about who hit whom, but rather how they hit each other (while screaming out the name of the attack no less).

Anyway, one of my favorite designers, a creator of color and someone who GETS anime. Go check it out!